


Primordial

by GlassAnkh



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Arachnophobia, Blood, Body Horror, Gen, Possession, moderate gore, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 16:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2474396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassAnkh/pseuds/GlassAnkh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parvis learns that summoning things from the darkness so he can kill them and bind them to his servitude without an instruction manual might not always be the best of all possible ideas. Strife finds this out, too. The hard way. Warnings in additional tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Primordial

**Author's Note:**

> So. Hello. I know this seems like it's part of a bigger thing which doesn't actually exist, sorry. It's kind of a trial run. I borrowed a few head-canons from people on tumblr for the design of Strife (bioluminescent freckles? Hell yes, that is an awesome mental image. I hope you don't mind, folks of tumblr, you are cool and I am unworthy.) 
> 
> Warnings again, for safety: for gore, body-horror, blood, and possession of the bug-in-the-brain variety, (well, I say "brain"... it's more like "starting in the chest and spinal cord and reaching up into the brain" but either way it's creepy), and spiders. Sort of.

**'The problem you seem to have, Alexander** ,' the creature mocked, wrapping an ugly smile a little tighter around Strife's features, ' **is your complete inability to think about _consequences_**.'

Parv thought that was a pretty stupid thing to assume when only you'd just met a guy. He knew about Consequences. This right here, for example, was probably one of them. They happened when you misused your Blood-Powered Pickaxe or threw eggs at a Light Mage or started poking delicate looking apparatus in Solutions Tower with your Bound sword... Long story short, Parv _knew_ what a consequence was.

Except... none of the other Rituals had _exploded._ Not properly. None of the other rituals had clawed their way out of the earth like the monster in a myth. None of the other rituals...

Had been made up on the spur of the moment.

Right. Consequences?

Strife's tongue slipped out to lick the blood away from his own lips and the creature blinked, all its eyes at once except for Strife's: the only pair that were flesh and blood, not what looked like _projections_ of light around the ghost of a face. ' **Hm. That's odd**.'

'...Right. Um. Odd's not the word _I_ was thinking of, mate, I'll be honest.'

Not the best introduction, but it was that or _"what in the name of hell are you and do you mind not chucking his body around like that, because it's sort of gross."_

The thin finger-like structures at Will's face twitch, as if manipulating it into a smile, which might have been funny if it weren't so horrifying. ' **No, I suppose not. He seems to think you should be _laughing_. Screaming at the dark... Under _normal_ circumstances.** ' 

Parvis didn't answer. The green freckles dusting Will's cheekbones glowed the same colour as the blood, but that was where Will stopped being Will: where the spider-like cadaver wrapped around him like broken armour. The ground was spitting embers that lit up the shape of a body you could mistake for human, except the wrongness of the shadows made even Parv's insides turn, and _Parv's_ insides held the blood of two dozen witches, bound in eternal suffering. ' **But those circumstances don't count here, do they?** ' the creature went on. There was a cracking sound from Strife's ribs. **'Not for any of us _. My_ normal conditions are more cramped. Not that he's _spacious_ but it's better than a cage of nether-fire**.'

The thing sneered. It sounded like Strife, except every now and then it's voice would _crack_. It moved towards him. Parv wouldn't say it walked. The creature didn't seem to know how to operate a body at all and why should it, really? It had just emerged from fire and burrowed into the nearest thing that breathed.  

Which just happened to be Strife, one step closer to the altar than Parv had been, arms thrown out in an exasperated gesture that left him wide open.

Definitely _not_ part of Parv's otherwise thoroughly genius plan.

' **Ohh, I think I see. Not _human_ ,**' the creature murmured in Will's voice. ' **Not at all... Close enough. The blood all comes from where the first voices whisper.** ' It chuckled. ' **How long has it been since then?** '

 _'Is that s'posed to be rhetorical?_ ' Parv didn't realise he'd said this aloud. He thought he _hadn't_ because hell, Parv _knew_ a rhetorical question when he heard one. Still, the creature _laughed_ as if it heard him and Parv's mind was scurrying through a dozen possible ways out, none of them viable...

The laugh could have been Will's if it weren't dripping with malicious. Parv shivered. Even down in the chasm, no voice should've reverberated like that.

' **Of course. It's nothing I can't figure out. This is a fairly independent body and you're just a diluted Blood Mage who called upon the Dark.** '

The Creature-Will moved, and Parvis moved _back_ because no, _not_ getting any closer at least not until it figured out how to walk like a normal... _anything_. There was so many things wrong with it, graceful and ungainly all at once. It had no body at all when it clawed its way out of the circle. The form only came when it's shadow pierced Will's chest.

Parv wasn't sure where to look. It was pretty interesting, really, in an awful sort of way, and Parvis _understood_ awful. The arms - _legs?_ \- had punctured metal and the air stank of blood. There were eyes where eyes _shouldn't_ be. He had seen Will's glowing in the dark, but their usual light was drowned and split through with red. Human blood, not nether brick. The colour combination was violent and wrong. Strife would hate it.

' **So here I am, with a little blood mage and his altar** ,' The creature leaned close though even its whisper echoed at the back of Parv's jaw. ' **And you summoned me here to... what? To destroy me? To claim me?'**

Parv coughed. 'What? It's usually a good plan. Worked the last couple hundred times anyway... It always worked.' He smirked, bravado making the grin fit. 'You're sort of just a big bug really, I mean, you don't even have your own skin.'

' **How unlike a Blood Mage to assume that flesh is sacred** ,' Spider-legs curled around Will's head, tilting his chin up to face the sky. It really had no idea what it was doing... Parv could use that, most likely, but it didn't change the fact that it _radiated_ power. It was something so old it couldn't exist without something to cling to. So it had reached out, and the blade still protruded from the centre of Wills chest.

' **The moon is the same,** ' it muttered, manipulating Will's face into a mockery of contemplation. ' **The stars though... Where _did_ you bring me, little blood mage? When?** ' Parv swallowed, still struggling to process... anything. The only thing he could come up with was _this thing is supposed to be dying. I'm supposed to be killing it and Will is in the_ way _..._

The creature twisted Will's head back to face Parv. ' **And this. How many destroyed worlds did it take to turn you into something so _small_?** ' It's spider legs, all... eight of them? Ten? Parv kept losing count as they moved- reached out to stroke the terra spilling over the earth, soaked with green blood. ' **I remember when you knew what Blood _was_.** '

If it wanted _Blood_ then Parv could give it. His bound sword was drawing on reservoirs of the stuff, building in the ground beneath his altar. He could have a lot of fun with that. He kept psyching himself up like this as he circled. He was quick. He could hit the legs that weren't gripping Will's head, or wrapped around his arms... maybe find a way to tear Will out and-  

And watch him bleed to death in seconds from a gaping hole in his chest.

Okay, Plan B: take out the head. That was how Sparkles' liked to deal with spiders. He could block it's vision, jump... Parv's hand barely tightened on the sword hilt.

A claw crushed the ground in front of him with a _whump_. ' **Oh no, Alexander, I don't think so.** ' The creature used Will's laugh again and Parvis felt  bile in his throat. ' **There's a _decent_ amount of power wrapped up in that network of yours. Don't mistake my uncertainty with the stars above for foolishness**.'

Parvis didn't handle frustration well. He silenced it, laughed at it, tore it apart along with all those other little distractions like hesitation and guilt and the memory of how to play a chord gently enough that you could hear Sparkles* hum over it. Right now all of those things bar the chords were boiling in his gut. Maybe the chords were there too somewhere, all just a little out of tune. The anger seared towards his face, where the creature used one of Will's fingers to brush the stubble on Parv's chin. ' **Do you _really_ want to risk it? I don't think you know _how_ , little Blood Mage. What clever human trickery might you possess which _he_ doesn't know about?** '

It reached out again with Will's hand. Parvis dashed it away and saw hot green blossom in the cut. It had about the result he anticipated. Not-Will stepped back and... _stood_. One of the limbs slashed Parv's sleeve and tore his skin as he ducked. He felt the tips of his hair burn.

 **'A child, of course. For all you know, still a child...** ' it lifted Will's fingers to tap his forehead. ' **It's all here, Alex. He knows what you are,** ' the creature... was that a cackle? Yeah, _cackle_ was as close as you were going to get to an adjective. ' **He knows so much about you. About your blood and your cruelty and your petty flattery...** ' It tapped a skeletal leg against Parv's foot as he scrambled backwards, sword in one hand, crystal in the other. Escape would be easy, but-

' **So much white noise,** ' the creature was waxing lyrical for reasons Parv could only ascribe to villainous posturing. ' **Like being inside a star. It's _interesting_... There are walls and lies everywhere. Well. He won't have to worry about _that_ anymore.** '

Parvis opened his mouth to speak, but none of the things he intended to say came out right. 'But... I mean -wait, okayI don't think you should just-'

' **And how else did you _think_ this should go?** ' The creature smirked. ' **Could you cage me like the witches in your basement?** '

'I- okay, look, I get this is in the job description, you being a spine-chilling primordial demon an' all, but you can't just _kill_ him, he's not a blood mage, he wasn't even meant to be...' _here. But he was here, because I asked him to be. He's always here._

Parv winced. This was exactly why empathy was such a pain in the everything.

' **Of course not,** ' the creature hissed. ' **What good is the brain without a body? Did you know...** ' It broke off, smiling. ' **That in his world, they once made puppets out of animal bones? Little carved figures inscribed with runes, skeleton guardians for their _children_ to play with. To protect them. But this was a long time ago. They forgot,** ' it sounded irritated. ' **They forgot _everything_. Surely you at least know better than _that_ , don't you, Blood Mage?**'

 _Yes_. Parv thought, even though his head pulsed with confusion and rage, the word that leapt into his mind was _yes_.

Strife acted as if Parv didn't understand. As if he didn't get what Blood Magic _did_. Your blood was old; the oldest thing you had. Blood took you all the way back to your ancestors, and then further still. Back to small mammals crawling on their bellies, back to the sea, to salt and warm darkness. Parvis understood. He knew what that _meant_ , and for all Strife's protests and disgruntled noises, maybe _he_ had understood once, too. He had _known_ what was at stake when Parvis built that Altar, when he crafted that sacrificial blade. Or at the very least, he _considered_ it.

So really, it was Strife's own bloody fault for going along with it for so long. Pun absolutely intended.

Except this...

No. 'Will–'

Y **ou're addressing the wrong person, Parvis,** ' Not-Will droned. It spread the limbs that arched from Will's back, spider-thin with joints in all the wrong places. They _creaked_.

The runes began like magma in the walls. Jagged lines and shapes, the kind of script you found in books the world had forgotten how to read. They carved themselves into the floor, tore thin gashes into Will's _skin_. The air felt as if someone were screaming just a little too far away for Parvis to hear.

'What the _hell_...' Parv trailed off as eight pairs of glowing eyes watched him, dark red and green, the brightness of them burrowing into Parv's skin. Parv wasn't sure how much heat came from the runes and how much the eyes, but the creature was turning now, twisting to watch the sky, exposing the carapace attached to a steel ribcage. Completely open. It must have known that. With all those eyes it couldn't have missed.

It didn't think he dared. That was stupid. The thing was prodding around inside of _Strife's_ brain, so it should have known better.

The bloodzooka struck with a scream, spitting raw heat as Parvis aimed for whatever part he hoped wasn't _Will_. The blood disintegrated into fire, fire into sparks, sparks into smoke. Stone shattered as the same chasm which had held four angry Withers crumbled like eggshell.

The creature flinched.

To Parv's own credit, it at least looked _surprised_ before it swatted him. He flew, and the stone wall cracked where Parv struck it. The armour swallowed his lost breath, devouring bruises and filling them with fresh blood before he even felt pain, but shock still rattled him enough to knock him over.  Parvis' gripped the stone orb, slamming it down to summon Steven, then moved as fast as Blood Magic and a possible concussion would allow. He traversed the fire, made more sparks, more smoke. The creature barely shuddered this time, it simply dragged one of Will's hands into position. Parv watched the explosion shatter, tearing Will's skin open. The flesh reformed almost instantly, either thanks to the creature's magic or Will's genetic enhancements kicking in.

Free from its stone prison, an orange shape lumbered over on Parv's left, muttering in cursed, ancient tongues that sounded more like a disgruntled badger than a lesser demon. 'Steven!' Parv yelled. 'Help me here!'

Parv figured Steven was confused, because all he did was flail his heavy limbs and stare at the walls of glowing runes. A bone-leg tore the earth, and Steven was thrown onto his back in the ashes, limbs flailing like a bewildered sloth. 'Oh nice, thanks Steven,' Parv spat. The demon continued to flounder, struggling to right itself until one of Not-Will's spider-like legs came down like a knife, and the demon practically imploded back into his cell.

Worst. Summon. _Ever_.

N **ot going to plan?** ' Not-Strife said. His face glared down at Parvis, searing through like a brand.

Parv _knew_ what he was seeing. Sort of. It was a gut-thing, the kind of knowledge humans are born with to keep them safe in the dark. It was the knowledge that led to fire and all those other things people used to fight. He knew, without a doubt, that even though it spoke his tongue this creature was older than words. It wore a smile, but it predated body language entirely, and it was wearing Strife like a meat puppet, pushing ungodly ancientness out through once-green eyes..  

Stolen eyes. Stolen body.

' **It's been enlightening, Alexander,** ' Not-Will said. ' **But I have goals, all decidedly more important than teaching a Blood Mage his place.** '

The legs fell around him like a cage, pushing Parvis back against the burning runes. It would try and kill him, okay, but Parv didn't move. Why should he? He wasn't scared of this thing with a body not its own, not with his armour and enough blood to drown he world. So he waited and he watched as the last of the sharp limbs dug in beneath his chin.

Then it stopped.

Parv waited.

' **R** u _n_ ,' a voice rasped. It _echoed_ in ways a voice shouldn't, but the eyes were clear and locked on Parv's face. The figure seized and dragged itself backwards in a jerking notion, releasing Parv's neck long enough for him to gasp.

Strife?

Parv wasn't big on doing what his instincts told him. Instincts could be pretty dull, surprisingly enough. They told you to get _away_ from monsters, but to _not_ do so by catapulting yourself a couple of hundred feet into the air with the ocean as a safety cushion. They told you to _not_ complete that ritual which drew upon seventy five percent of your blood network in one go, but to also not let the _escaped_ Witches pummel you with potions until you died of nausea. Instincts were just contradictions, really. They never knew what they wanted. If Parv wasted time listening to them, his life would've been a lot less interesting and a great deal more confusing.

 _Run_.

There were always exceptions, though.

Parvis smashed his bound sword into Creature-Will's leg until he heard a crack, tore himself free, charged through the fire at his back, and _leapt_.

 

*****

 

His landing wasn't exactly graceful. Kind of the opposite actually. There was a lot of water and cold and swallowing of dirty, cold water involved.

He splashed down in the swampland to the north and took a couple of mouthfuls before he broke the surface, but he wasn't dead and still had all of his limbs and faculties so what the hell, Parv would take it. Algae dragged at his armour as he heaved himself out of fetid green water onto an equally fetid looking bank and fell back, lungs raw from smoke and salt. There was a strange peace in the air, like the silence after a fireworks display.

Parv stayed like that for a while before fumbling in his belongings. He smashed Steven's Orb, and glared as the creature tumbled onto the grass looking more perpetually confused than usual.

'This ... is your... fault,' Parv wheezed.

The demon blinked.

'Because,' Parv coughed. 'You're _useless_. You were supposed to be a... distraction or... Or something... is that too much to ask, Steven?' he staggered to his knees one slow, creaking muscle at a time, wondering why everything _hurt_ so much. It wasn't like he'd never been thrown into a wall before. 'A-actually wait... no... Sorry. it's not your fault at all. Definitely his fault... Him and his " _this is a bad idea Parvis... it's gonna bite you in the ass someday... mark my words_ " et-cetera,' Parv grimaced, although he thought that a fairly _good_ impersonation of Strife. 'Just... encouraged me. _Hell_. If it was so dangerous then why'd he _turn his back on_ it?'

He took Steven's silence to mean that yes, this was definitely Will's fault and now they were probably going to have to rescue him.

'Well then,' Parv muttered. 'Time for a new plan, I reckon.'

Steven dug at a clump of grass with his unwieldy hands and carefully dropped a few blades onto Parv's chest.

'...You're not helpful,' Parv grimaced. 'You know who's helpful? Strife. Strife is helpful. Strife is _very_ helpful. Except now he's being helpful to that... _thing_ and a fat lot of good that's going to do us. Pretty sure he's giving it memories too. You realise that? _Our_ memories. What _was_ that, Steven? None of your other... cousins or whatever they are in relation to you were like that, none of them _felt_ like that!'

In the distance, the castle was glowing with a faint red light, but he could make out the clouds around it. The air was _distorted_ , like a storm gathering around one spot. Parv could feel it, even from this far away. The air was crackling.

'And what's he doing _now_?'

The only answer came from a little sharp voice inside of his head (the one which sounded uncannily and annoyingly like William Strife): _Nothing good._

Parv took a breath. He could handle this. Strife has been wearing the Exosuit, but the chitin plating had splintered. It had burrowed _into_ him and still had to cling on.  More a parasite than a demon, really, which meant it could be _removed_...

'Right, okay Steven, _think_ ,' Parv muttered, getting to his feet and standing there for a moment or two, waiting for the world to figure out which way up it was supposed to be. 'I should... we need to _think_ about this. We need a _plan_.'

He had to go back. He had to figure out what that thing was and...

And what?

What indeed. Even if he could bring it down (which he _could_ because he was _Parvis_ , he had surplus power coming out the wazoo, he just had to figure out exactly where to _hit_ it) that didn't change the fact that it had made a meat puppet out of Strife. Okay, so Strife was annoying and kept calling it potty mouth wizardry and acting like he owned the moon but Parv didn't _actually_ want to kill him, much less leave him stuck with an oversized bug from the underworld digging into his brain.

You couldn't go to intergalactic business meetings with a giant bug from the underworld sticking out of your brain. Well, maybe you _could_. Maybe they did that kind of thing wherever Will came from, but-

"Ow, _ow_..."

Parv tugged at his gloves. He could feel it now that the adrenaline had worn off, the rawness where his skin had touched the hot smoke or gotten too close to the runes. There was a sting where the creature grazed his neck and a burning sensation in his back. Anything that could do _that_ when he was kitted out in blood armour...

No. As much as Parv hated to admit it, he might possibly need a tiny bit of help for this one.

Parv started walking. He wasn't sure where, he just picked a direction that wasn't back towards the castle. His feet were hurting. He wasn't sure why. It was possible the heat around the ritual area had burned through his boots, too. He considered taking them off, but then he thought about how Blood Armour tended to react when not being utilised as part of a whole and thought better of it.

It wasn't as if Parv kept track of people: Notch only knew where Martyn had gotten to, Parv wasn't sure if Taint mixed well with Blood Magic and also, he didn't know where they were so Panda Labs was out; and the Magic Police were basically Ars Magicka Aficionados who had him on their hit list anyway. So _no_ , _not really_ , and _nope absolutely nope_ , in that order. There _were_ some witches, he remembered. Just north of Strife's tower. Lomadia, Nilesy and a cacophony of bird and animal life. They'd _have_ to be at least a _bit_ concerned, if Parv were to tell them. Hell, William Strife was running around with a parasitic demon leeching on his brain, so _the_ _enemy of my enemy is a friend_ , was probably in play here... Or _the enemy of the-possible-server-wide-threat-in-the-form-of-a-parasitic-demon is my reluctant ally for as long as this continues to be a problem_ really.

They were an option at least. Options were good. Parv was sure he was on the right train of thought. 'My normal conditions are more cramped', he mumbled. That was what it said. Which meant someone had locked it away. It had to be Witchery or Ars or some other magic that had easily linked into Blood Craft all that time ago, back when people had been more afraid of what Blood could stand for. He'd read about this. When you had things you needed sealing up for eternity, your best bet was to go locate a witch. They'd probably give you a sceptical look while telling you how ridiculously unfeasible that was, but at the very least they _might_ still sell you a couple of centuries.

'What we need,' he muttered. 'What we need, Steven is... is people who can't die. People like me! Except _not_ like me obviously, because that's asking the impossible.' It wasn't as if Parv spared death a second thought. He was as good as immortal. But then, so was Strife...

Maybe what Parvis needed now was somebody even closer to sealing that particular deal with a devil.

'Kirin,' he muttered under his breath. 'Right. That's a plan. Plan C! I like Plan C. Good news, Steven, we have a Plan C!' The demon looked up at Parv's exclamation, seeming curious. 'This is workable! Just let me do the talking, okay? Because Plan C doesn't involve us getting blown up by suspicious witchy ambushes.'

He drew his sword, killed the creature with a stab to the chest, turned north and leapt again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you think Kirin's first words regarding this situation would probably be "why don't you just kill him? It'd make this all far less complicated"... you would probably be correct. 
> 
> Also, characterisation is hard. I did keep this, but I'd appreciate feedback on whether or not the bolding of patches of text to indicate something big is speaking is a good idea. As I understand it can make some things difficult to read for others.


End file.
